Nya

So, Tamika and I have come to an agreement on a name for our little baby. 🙂
If you’re just tuning in, a month ago we discovered that she will be a girl, and began narrowing down what we would like to name her.
Finally, on June 21st, we decided that we would name her Nya (pronounced Nah-yah).
We were at an India Arie concert. Tamika and I had bought tickets months ago, and invited as many friends as possible to join us. Only Aebony and Derek joined us, and we packed ourselves into the Rams Head Live, a music venue in downtown Baltimore.

The show was spectacular. We got decent “seats” (it was standing room only) up on a 2nd level balcony above the stage. And it was just amazing. She sang, played piano, guitar, and even played the flute. Changing or modifying her outfit for every song, after a short while she fell silent, and just looked out into the crowd.
“You know, I’ve got this setlist here…” she said, “And I don’t feel like singing it. There are other songs that I think you need to hear.”
And from that point on, she would go around and chat with her band to decide which songs to play. And play they did. Her musicians and singers were incredible. And Arie let them perform. She had them do solos, and invited them to dance around on the stage with her, and called on everyone in the place to sing along. At one point, she even stopped in the middle of the song, and pointed out into stage right. “Someone can sing over here.” she exclaimed, “No, seriously. I heard someone who can really sing. Who was it?” With that, she put the microphone down into the audience, and had girls pass it around singing the chorus of the song.

She sang songs from all three of her albums, and even gave us previews of “songs that may or may not make it on the next album”. She gave testimonies about her life and relationships, preached a sermon, and even brought her mother out on stage to sing with her.

Tamika had suggested the name Nya some time back, as a hybrid from what had been our favourite names up until that point. She had really like Neyla, and I like Nyrobi. Nya means “purpose” in Swahili, and as we listened to India Arie’s music wafting up from the stage, I told Tamika we should definitely name her that.

In my family, my father, my sister and me all share the initials BJ, while my mother and brother share NJ. We thought this might be a cool tie back to them as well.

The rest of that weekend was nice and relaxing. We traveled up to Philadelphia to visit her grandparents. I got to swim in the pool (one of my favourite things to do) and just rest. It was very nice.
On Sunday we got to go to downtown Philadelphia to see the musical “Hair” at the Prince Music Theater. I’m designing brochures for their upcoming cabaret and season, and so I was offered free tickets to come see their final show. It was very well done. Tamika and I got front row seats, and the performance literally happened all around us.
When I was at Messiah College, we performed Shakespeare’s “As You Like It“, but in a 1960’s setting. After seeing “Hair”, I now see how much our director, Valerie Rae Smith, pulled from the musical. We even opened with “Age of Aquarius” and sang “Let the Sunshine In”. My role was to be “William”, a minor character.

I’ve got the clutch on my motorcycle fixed, finally! Troy, a neighbor from down the street who is a highly-skilled handyman, helped me re-thread the cable and taught me how to adjust it with a screw on the side of the engine.
All I have to do now is buy some oil, a filter, and a new set of gaskets and it’ll be ready to run! Of course, I’ll have to take it to inspection (which it may not pass), but at least I’m headed in the right direction. I miss riding it…